The present invention relates to an electric fishing reel which is provided with a drive motor for rotationally driving a spool rotatably supported on a reel body.
Generally, the electric fishing reel is provided with a speed change mechanism for reeling operations at a speed according to the situations. As this speed change mechanism, there has been proposed (as referred to Japanese Patent No. 3,537,363, for example) a mechanical type speed change mechanism, in which a high-speed reduction gear mechanism and a low-speed reduction gear mechanism are connected between a motor output shaft and a spool power transmission mechanism so that the power transmission state is switched into the high speed and the low speed by selecting one gear mechanism in accordance with the rotational direction of a drive motor.
In the mechanical type speed change mechanism disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3,537,363, however, the high-speed and low-speed power transmission shafts to be used for the high-speed and low-speed power transmission state, respectively, are individually arranged at positions apart from the motor output shaft. This arrangement raises a problem that the additional spaces are needed in the radial directions thereby to make it difficult to reduce a size of the entire electric reel. Especially in the electric reel of the arrangement, in which the drive motor and the reduction gear mechanism are arranged in the spool, the size reduction of the electric reel is made more difficult by the relation between the size of the spool and the line winding capacity.
In the aforementioned speed change mechanism, the driving force of the drive motor is transmitted through the power transmission route constituted by many gears belonging to the speed change mechanism, the spool power transmission mechanism, the reduction gear mechanism and so on. This transmission raises a problem that meshing noises (chatter) are easily made by the gears rotating at the high speed at the time of power transmission.
In the aforementioned speed change mechanism, when one gear mechanism is selected to transmit the driving force of the drive motor to the spool power transmission mechanism, the power transmission of the other gear mechanism is regulated by a one-way clutch. In this gear mechanism, however, there exist the gears which rotate at high speeds in accordance with the rotation of the motor output shaft. Therefore, these gears are subject to useless loads for endurance although they are not used for the power transmission, which is not preferable.